Boeing Co. tapped three firms with connections to its existing facilities in North Charleston, S.C., to build a new final assembly plant for its 787 Dreamliner.
BE&K/Turner, a joint venture of the BE&K Building Group of Greenville, S.C., and Turner Construction Co., will work with Melbourne, Fla.-based design partner BRPH Cos. on the design-build contract. The high-profile project is one of the largest single capital investments in the state’s history.
BE&K announced that its South Carolina regional office in Greenville will serve as the headquarters for the BE&K/Turner/BRPH team, which it stated is in the process of mobilizing the North Charleston site.
Mac Carpenter, a BE&K/Turner project executive and executive vice president with BE&K, stated that permits have been issued and the project team is expecting to break ground in November.
The three firms worked together at Boeing’s North Charleston complex when it was still owned by Boeing’s supplier, Vought Aircraft Industries.
In 2006, BE&K Building Group, in a design-build partnership with BRPH, delivered a 342,000-sq-ft building used for fabrication and assembly of aft fuselage sections for the Boeing 787 aircraft, as well as the adjacent Global Aeronautica production facility, which is 50% owned by Boeing. Turner served as the owner’s representative on both of these projects.
The design-build team’s news release indicated the new Dreamliner assembly plant will be designed to achieve LEED Silver certification.
Boeing announced its selection of North Charleston for its new facility over Everett, Wash.— where its other Dreamliner final assembly plant is located—after the South Carolina legislature approved an incentives package valued at approximately $450 million. The Boeing plant is expected to deliver about 3,800 jobs to the area. The incentives package estimates that the new facility will create $750 million in investment within seven years.